The Gatekeeper
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Where has Dean been the last two days?


_This story first appeared in the zine, _Chinook 6_ (2006), from Black Fly Press_**  
**

**The Gatekeeper**  
K Hanna Korossy**  
**

Knowledge is power, and Sam Winchester had rarely felt so powerless.

His body wanted to _do_something: hit something, go out and track down what he was looking for, stalk the small motel room if nothing else. But his mind knew the only way to find Dean now was information, and that meant phone calls, the laptop, Dad's journal. Not pacing. Not talking to everyone in town he could think of, nor driving the streets aimlessly as he'd done the day before, hoping to see something. Hoping to see Dean. Hoping he wasn't suffering, trapped…dead.

After almost two days, Sam was starting to run low on hope.

The light seeping through the thin curtains had begun to fade, and Sam rubbed wearily at his forehead as he stared at it. It would be night soon, the second since they'd completed a successful imp hunt and Dean had gone to bed right next to him and not been there the following morning. That was too long in their line of work, where letting your guard down for even a second could mean death, or worse. Dean could be anywhere by now, in this world or the next, leaving Sam with his pathetic little attempts at gathering information and a whole lot of desperation. With a grimace, Sam smacked the tabletop and surged to his feet, lacing his hands behind his head as he looked around the suddenly stifling room. This wasn't working. This wasn't working, and meanwhile, Dean could be—

_Thud. _

Sam jerked, startled, eyes going to the door. A knock would have made him suspicious, but that had been a full-scale thump, like something was trying the strength of the door. Sam cautiously moved toward it, fingers slipping comfortably around Dean's knife as he passed it on the dresser. Good, he was more than ready to cut loose on something, and maybe it would give him a clue to where Dean was.

Sam turned the knob, and the door swung in by itself, weighted by something that leaned against it. Sam dropped the knife in his slack-jawed haste to catch the falling bundle of grime and blood and leather.

"Dean!"

His brother jolted at the exclamation, momentarily flailing in Sam's hands. But by then, he'd already gotten a good grip under Dean's arms and along his back. Sam hauled him into the room, kicking the door shut as an afterthought.

"Dean, what the—?" He started towing the sagging body toward the closest bed.

Halfway there, Dean's dragging feet caught on the carpet and dug in, and his wobbly legs locked. Sam was still processing—God, his brother was actually back, but in what shape?—but Dean had apparently figured out who Sam was, because the determined hands that fisted the loose edges of Sam's shirt were pulling him close now instead of struggling to get away.

"Take it easy," Sam calmed, wincing as he finally got a good look at the bloodshot eyes and stark, battered face. The last time he'd seen that hollow look had been after Lawrence, but the fear…he'd only seen that the few times he or his dad had been badly hurt. Never for something they encountered, never for Dean himself. "Let me get you over to the bed so I can see how you're doing, all right?" he asked softly, as if he couldn't already see how Dean was.

Dean was shaking his head, the movement jerky. "Sam." His voice sounded parched, rough. "We have to go."

His brother was still stubbornly standing, although Sam could feel the struggle it took. He tried again to pull them toward the bed, only to feel Dean increase his resistance. Sam didn't think he had the strength to spare to fight him, so gave up the effort and stayed there next to him, his arms and Dean's will the only thing holding the older Winchester up. "Where, Dean? Where do we have to go?"

Eyes almost wild with fear darted back to him. "Just…away from here. We need to—"

Sam shook his head, Dean's obvious terror rattling him. "Calm down, all right? Let me take a look at you and then we can—"

The hands dug into his shirtfront shook him with surprising strength. "Now. We need to go_now_, Sam."

Dean's hands were tight enough against his chest to bruise, and Sam glanced down at them. They were flaking with dried blood, two of Dean's fingernails torn or hanging. Sam's brow creased in eye-watering empathy.

Dean yanked at his shirt again, even more weakly than before, and his trembling increased. It wouldn't be long until he collapsed and Sam could get him off his feet, check him over. But there was no fresh blood that Sam could see, no wounds that appeared to need immediate care, and Dean was asking—begging—for something Sam had in his power to grant. If he hadn't already trusted the instincts of even this frantic-eyed version of his brother, that alone would have decided him.

"All right," he said, nodding, his hands wrapping carefully around Dean's. A marathon-rate pulse pounded under his fingertips. "We'll get out of here. But I need to pack first—just sit down for a minute…" He tugged Dean the other way now, toward a chair.

"Sam." It was a raw scrape of a whisper, and that one word told him as much as the panic lurking in Dean's eyes how shaken his brother was.

"It's okay," he shushed. "We're going. I'm just going to sit you down and pack, all right?"

A pause, and then Dean's head bowed. "Yeah." A vague nod. "Sure." Defeat or resignation, Sam couldn't tell which, colored his tone. And this time when Sam pulled at his brother's heavy body, there was only the resistance of uncoordinated, twitching muscles. Sam had to half-drag him over to the chair, then ease him down when Dean would have just dropped.

The best he could do was make this as fast as possible, even though every instinct clawed at Sam to tend to the man sitting and glassily watching him work. Dean's posture was one of exhaustion and bone-deep ache, but the curled fists and restless stirring betrayed how uneasy he remained. Sam barely spared him an occasional reassuring glance as he darted around the room throwing clothing, weapons, and research into bags, not caring what went where. He was brimming with questions, but every glimpse of his brother's strained face killed them for the moment.

Back at the table, he had unplugged the laptop and started winding up the cord when he got another look at Dean's hands. Frowning, Sam reached over and pinched the skin gently. By the time Dean reacted, pulling his hand away, Sam had seen what he'd suspected and was halfway to the bathroom. He returned with a glass of water, to find Dean already half-risen to his feet.

"I'm not leaving without you, Dean," he said quietly as his brother flopped with relief back into the chair. Sam swallowed, nudged the glass toward him. "Drink that before we go."

Dean threw him an automatic glare but obeyed, dragging a tongue heavily over cracked lips and managing not to spill most of the water by holding the glass with two hands. His obvious thirst made Sam wince again; he should have thought of that sooner. Wherever Dean had been the last two days, they probably hadn't had room service.

Sam finished packing with a set jaw and vengeance in his heart.

The duffels loaded, or rather, tossed into the trunk from the doorway to avoid as much as possible being out of Dean's sight, Sam returned to his side. "Ready?"

Dean was already pushing himself up, wincing but not rejecting the help. "I'm not five, Sammy," he grumbled, and Sam suddenly found himself smiling for the first time in days. If Dean was complaining and calling him by his childhood name, the world hadn't completely shifted off its axis. He half-expected Dean to shake him off as Sam wrapped an arm around his waist, but apparently rebellion only went so far. Dean's hand dug into his shoulder for support, and together they shuffled out to the Impala.

Sam still hadn't asked where his brother had been all that time, or how he'd gotten back to the motel. A glance both ways down the street revealed only relatively empty sidewalk, and Sam wondered if Dean had lurched and stumbled his way back from wherever without anyone even noticing or caring. The questions burned in him, but Dean was here, relatively safe, and in no condition for interrogation. Sam and his impatience could wait.

Sam settled Dean into the passenger seat, tucking a blanket around him despite another glower from his brother and an unspoken _quit fussing,_ but Dean's pale skin was still cool as well as dry. Borderline shock, Sam guessed, another reason the questions could wait. The only thing Dean seemed anxious about now was getting away from there, and if that bought them whatever time they needed, Sam was willing to give it to him.

The car roared to life and Sam peeled out of the parking lot, turning up the music as soon as they hit the open road.

He suspected it was distance, however, rather than the comfort of the familiar that started to work its magic on Dean. Slowly, stiff shoulders relaxed, shallow breaths lengthened and deepened, and hands that anxiously gripped the seat and door loosened. Sam waited until Dean's head began to droop, eyes half-closed, before he decided they'd gone far enough and pulled into the next motel. It was an unusually homey looking one, with flowers and painted shutters. The promise of clean sheets and a comfortable room was just what they needed.

When he opened his door, Dean's head jerked up. "I'll be right back," Sam quickly promised.

"Hurry up," Dean slurred, and his eyes sagged shut again.

Sam got them a room, reparked the car, and with Dean dozing in earnest now, unpacked it before he came back for his brother. Even though he was still half-asleep, the little bit of rest and the lot of calming down had done Dean good, and he limped mostly under his own steam into the room. Still, he was weaving by the time he reached the bed. Sam nearly smiled as Dean sank down on the mattress and would have kept going if not for a steadying hand.

"Cut it out, Sam," Dean said groggily, trying to worm free. "'M okay."

"Yeah, which is why you almost passed out on me before. I need to see where the blood came from." He eased Dean's jacket free, followed by his outer shirt. "You need to drink some more, too—you're dehydrated."

"Mmm," came the noncommittal reply. Dean's eyes had closed.

Sam glanced up at his face as he bent down to untie his brother's boots. "So, where were you?" he asked softly.

Dean jerked as if Sam had smacked him, and Sam saw the flicker of panic in his eyes before they turned away from him. "I don't remember."

"Dean—"

But his brother had straightened, glancing around the room with new awareness. "How long was I gone?"

Sam blinked, boot laces hanging from his hand. "What?"

"How long was I gone, Sam?"

"Two days."

Dean went even whiter. And Sam realized he really had no clue where he'd been. His terror must have been something instinctive, something that went deeper than knowledge. That kind of loss of control, of time, would just ratchet up the fear a few notches for someone as contained as Dean. It didn't have a physical manifestation this time, but it burned in the back of Dean's eyes where only Sam knew to look for it.

"Hey." He put a hand on a stiff knee, waiting for Dean's eyes to swing back down to him. "We'll figure it out, okay? That's what you're always telling me, right? We'll figure it out, Dean."

"Two days, Sam," Dean said tightly. "That's…"

Forever. Yeah, he knew. Sam's nose twitched, mouth pulling at his brother's distress. "We'll figure it out," he repeatedly evenly, this time a promise.

A long moment, then Dean wearily nodded.

Sam helped him slide out of his jeans and t-shirt, then lie down. Dean's eyes closed again, but Sam knew his brother wasn't asleep as he did his examination. Deep bruises patterned the muscled back and left side, that arm also marked. Sam couldn't tell what had caused the bruises from their shapes, however, and could see no sign of finger marks or restraints. Nothing but those savaged hands, the skin on the fingertips torn and scraped, as if Dean had tried to claw his way out of someplace. Sam got a bowl of water from the bathroom, returning to find Dean's eyes open and dully watching him, then sat beside him and began cleaning his hands. The pulped finger beds he wrapped in gauze, leaving the rest open to heal.

A gash on the back of Dean's head explained both the confusion and the blood on his shirt, and Sam cleaned that next, deciding to also let it air dry. Dean hated tape in his hair, and the crusted wound had stopped bleeding long ago.

Dean was breathing long and deep through his mouth now, eyes slitted as he watched Sam work with marginal awareness. Sam smiled up at him sometimes, just to remind Dean who it was with him. Although, he had an idea Dean wouldn't be so calm if he wasn't certain of that already.

Sam ran a hand finally down his legs, stopping with a frown when he brushed something that made Dean flinch. He coaxed his brother onto his side, Dean murmuring a sleepy protest, and Sam cursed under his breath. There was a deep puncture wound in the back of one calf, blood a thick smear of red down to the heel. He should have guessed there was something more than fatigue behind the limp before, but he was working on half-speed here, and Dean…

He still didn't know how his brother had made it back to him, let alone where he'd been, and that scared Sam, too.

He took a deep breath, swallowing the what-ifs as desperately as oxygen, and set to cleaning the wound, gentle and thorough and stopping only to calm Dean with a touch when the pain penetrated his sleep.

Sam packed the wound with antibiotics, wrapped it, then went to wash the blood off his hands. His grip on the edge of the porcelain sink left red ovals behind, and he rinsed those off first. Sam didn't look in the mirror.

The room wavered when he came out again, and Sam caught himself on a chair back, remembering he hadn't slept the last two nights, either. His head hurt and it took effort to focus his eyes, and every time he looked at Dean sleeping on the bed, emotion overwhelmed his weak defenses and clogged his throat again. They both needed sleep, food, time. Oh, and Dean some water. Sam detoured back into the bathroom to fill a glass.

It was harder to coax his brother into swallowing this one, Sam more or less propping him up and holding the cup, but Dean emptied it willingly enough. Sam set the empty glass down on the nightstand and stared at his brother. Puncture wound, bruises, a head injury. It could be a non-supernatural attack, but then how did it get Dean out of their room in the first place, and why no restraint marks, no finger marks of any kind?

Sam sighed tiredly, rubbing his face with his hands. Anything was just speculation at this point. They needed to go back to the town, retrace their steps, try to retrace Dean's. And maybe recovery and distance would help his memory come back, too.

But…rest first. Even their dad had drilled into him that you didn't go into a hunt when you weren't at your best. Sam smiled slightly at the thought of Dean's reaction to him quoting Dad.

He looked over at the second bed. He'd been sleeping about that far away when Dean had disappeared, and his own panic then at not knowing where Dean was unexpectedly swamped Sam again. Forget this, he abruptly decided; Dean could make fun of him later, but Sam wasn't sleeping over there where he couldn't keep track of him. Sam carefully crawled over him instead, and stretched out against Dean's back.

His brother shifted toward him in sleep, automatically responding to his warmth. And murmured something so softly, Sam would have missed it if he'd been any farther away.

"Gatekeeper."

He pushed himself up on one elbow, trying to see Dean's face. "What?"

But Dean was fast asleep, face smoothed of tension.

Sam reluctantly settled back down. _Gatekeeper?_ He didn't recognize the reference. But it was another clue, and he'd take what he could get. He'd have to look it up…

Tomorrow, because he was already asleep, his forehead resting against Dean's spine and moving fractionally with his brother's every inhalation.

00000

_Dean gone hurt screaming pain NEED!_

Sam's eyes shot open, breath strangled in his throat.

The sound of blood rushing in his ear drowned out everything for a few seconds, but then his environment began to register: bed, dim motel room, Dean sleeping nearby. It was that last that made Sam's heart finally settle, and he dropped his head back to the pillow to catch his breath.

He hadn't had a nightmare in a while, but with the strain of Dean going missing, it had probably been inevitable. What mattered was that he was there and safe…and sleeping as far away from Sam as the queen-sized bed would allow, stretched out along its edge. Sam grinned. Now _that_ was his Dean, tolerant enough of Sam's need to have him close to keep from relocating to the free bed, but, dude, not _that_ close.

Sam glanced over his brother's shoulder at the clock. Almost eight. Good enough. With a yawn, he eased off the mattress and into the bathroom.

Two hours later, he sat scanning websites with a practiced eye, trying to find any nuggets of information buried in the dreck. And not having any luck. Sam swallowed a sigh as he clicked on another link he didn't have much higher hopes for, either.

Over on the bed nearby, Dean jolted from sleep. Sam's head whipped up at the motion he'd been watching for, and he pushed the laptop aside and sat up.

"Morning, Sunshine."

Palms flat on the bed, body already tensed in preparation to spring, Dean stared at him for a few seconds before flopping back onto the mattress with a groan.

Sam's smile softened into sympathy. "That good, huh?"

"Remember that hangover in Tulsa?" He still sounded raspy, probably from the dehydration, but not in pain and not afraid and coherent and real, and Sam was more than happy with that.

"How could I forget—you threw up in my duffel."

"This's worse," Dean said, grimacing.

"I'll make sure to keep my stuff away from you." Sam stood, flexing a kink out of his back before he went over to sit on the edge of Dean's bed. "How do you feel?"

But Dean had discovered his bandaged hands and was examining them with puzzled eyes. "Sammy, there something I should know about here?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me. First you go missing for two days, then you turn up looking like that and practically faint at my feet."

"Dude, I don't faint. Girls like you faint. I pass out. Which I don't remember doing."

Sam huffed, only marginally amused. "Do you remember anything about what happened? Where you were, how you got back?" he asked softly.

Dean conceded the seriousness of the question with a faint twitch as he sat up, then his eyes slid away from Sam as he thought about it. "Uh, before this morning? Going to bed. You staying up late to answer some email. Pizza before that. And…the imp?"

Sam nodded. "Nothing after you went to sleep, though?"

Dean had the raise of an eyebrow down to an art form. "Does dreaming about Scarlett Johansson count?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dean."

"Okay, okay." He raised a hand to scrape through his hair, bringing it down just as quickly as he was reminded of the bandages. Staring at the appendage, Dean's face darkened, grew distant. Just as Sam leaned forward to see him better, panic leaped into his eyes. "Sam." Dean grabbed his arm urgently. "We have to…"

"What, Dean?" Sam leaned forward.

Dean shook his head, clearly trying to clear cobwebs, and his frown deepened to confusion. The panic was gone as if it had never been there, but a different kind of fear was creeping into his eyes, more subtle and familiar. "I can't remember." Dean cursed, staring at him. "Two whole friggin' days gone and I can't remember anything, Sam."

"That's all right," Sam soothed automatically. "We'll work it out, okay?"

"No, it's not okay. I could've been possessed and doing God knows what, or having God knows what done to—" Dean stood, restless, then fell back just as suddenly as his leg buckled. "What the—?" He stared at the gauze wrapped around it.

Sam shook his head and exhaled a breath. "It looks like you were…stabbed or something in the leg. I cleaned it out—Dean, I don't think you were possessed. You'd remember what happened then and," he picked up one of his brother's hands, feeling Dean's muscles tense even more, "this looks to me like you were trying to get out of somewhere. I think you were locked up someplace."

Dean's scowl wasn't directed at Sam, and he pulled his hand away from Sam almost gently. "Someplace I really didn't want to be, apparently."

"Someplace we can find," Sam said pointedly. "We figure out where you were and you might even remember the rest."

Dean was staring at his hand again, and rubbing his side carefully with the other one. He offered a mirthless snort. "I'm starting to think maybe it's not such a bad thing I can't remember."

Sam waited patiently for his brother's lead. He wanted to find out what had happened, but if Dean didn't, he wouldn't push. What mattered was what Dean could live with. And that it didn't happen again, but Sam would make darn sure of that, even if it meant sharing a bed again from now on or Sam sleeping in front of the door to do it.

Dean sighed and ran his hands more gingerly over his face this time. "Okay. Where do we start?"

Sam tipped his head to one side. "Well, so far I haven't turned up anything on the history of the town. If we go back, maybe we can—Dean?"

Dean had stiffened, his hands clenched onto the edge of the mattress as if he were afraid of spinning off. Sam stared at him in bafflement until he saw the bloom of red on the sheet beneath Dean's crushing fingers. Appalled, he leaned forward, pulling at his brother's stiff arms.

"Dean, let go. Let _go._"

And just like that, Dean's body relaxed, hands loosening their grip, hazel eyes gazing at him with blank perplexity. "Sammy?"

"Yeah," he said softly.

Dean's jaw worked. "Okay, that's it—we're going back."

Sam made a face. "If whatever this is is affecting you that much, maybe—"

"Sam, I am not gonna live the rest of my life avoiding this place because something messed with my head there. I won't let this thing turn me into some scared _chick_."

"I can go back alone," Sam offered.

The hazel grew piercing. "We sure something didn't mess with your head, too? Because there is no way I'm letting you go back there by yourself and you know it."

"All right," Sam agreed just as easily as he turned Dean's hand over. One of the scabs on his fingertips had cracked, and the digit was smeared with blood. Sam reached for a tissue on the nightstand and offered it to his brother, who pressed it against the finger. "But you need to eat and get some more fluids in you, and some more sleep probably wouldn't hurt." At Dean's rising protest, he quickly overrode him with, "And I need to do some more research—we don't even have a place to start yet. Okay? We'll be a lot more ready for this tomorrow."

Dean appeared ready to argue, but he knew the rules as well as Sam. With a disgruntled sound, he reached for his bag, wincing as he did.

Sam stopped him with a hand on the wrist. "_I'll _get the food. You look like you've just escaped from a hospital."

"No such luck," Dean muttered, but didn't fight him. He lay back wearily on the bed, tucking one arm under his head as he reached for the remote with the other.

Sam had stood and started to turn away. "Oh, Dean?" He looked back.

"Yeah?"

"Does the word 'gatekeeper' mean anything to you?"

"What, like in _Ghostbusters_?" Not even a flicker of the earlier fear, nor recognition.

Sam shook his head. "Never mind."

Dean shrugged and turned the TV on.

Seemed they had more than one mystery to solve. But that wasn't what had Sam reluctant to move, and he stood and watched Dean a few seconds more before finally turning back to the door. "Don't go anywhere while I'm gone," he said quietly, not figuring Dean would hear him over the TV.

"Dude, you've got my keys and my money." Dean sounded amused at the notion.

Sam knew better. His mouth twitched, and he left to get them something to eat.

00000

Dean slept most of the day, waking for meals and the water Sam kept pushing on him until he started taking bathroom breaks. The fear and the confusion were gone, replaced by an edgy irritation at being laid up and, Sam suspected, not knowing how he'd gotten that way. But he also saw Dean's complaints die in his mouth each time he looked up at Sam, and his own heart never stopped humming its gratitude that he'd gotten his brother back.

It was about the only thing that was going right, though, and by mid-afternoon, Sam pushed away from the laptop in frustration and rubbed his tired eyes. Dean was asleep again, sprawled on his stomach, his face turned toward Sam. The swollen bruise around his left eye looked only slightly better than it had the day before, and Sam winced again at seeing it. _What got you, Dean?_ Held him and hurt him and then made him forget? Anger burned in Sam at the mere thought, and he snorted softly. No hypocrite he, getting on Dean's case all the time for being so protective, when Sam was ready to go out and personally dismember whatever it was that had dared attack Dean. It seemed to be a brother thing, not just an older brother thing as Dean seemed to think. Or maybe it was a Winchester thing. John had been fiercely defensive of them, too, when he wasn't busy butting heads with Sam. Nobody or nothing messed with a Winchester without bringing the others down on itself.

Until now, anyway.

Sam rose and collected his laptop, suddenly feeling too far away. He relocated to the floor between the beds, his back comfortable against the edge of Dean's mattress. It was softer than the chair, anyway, and he could hear Dean breathing behind him now. Oddly, it let him concentrate more, and he went back to researching with new focus.

Dean slept on. Sighed and turned on his side. Mumbled "gatekeeper" in his sleep as he settled back on his stomach a few minutes later.

Sam froze, then turned his head to examine his sleeping brother. Okay, once was a random memory; two was a message. "What's 'gatekeeper,' Dean?" he whispered.

Dean was getting more restless. Sam watched silently as he twisted in sleep, tangling himself in the blankets. Then his face clouded over. "Sammy…no…"

Enough. "Dean," Sam said sharply, and that was all it took. Dean's eyes snapped open, fear vibrant in them for the split second it took for them to settle on Sam. "You okay?" Sam asked.

One long breath to recover equilibrium, and Dean rolled onto his back. "Terrific."

Sam sidled over so he was leaning against the nightstand now and could see his brother. "What's 'gatekeeper'?"

Dean frowned at him. "Dude, what's with the _Ghostbusters _trivia? You channeling the Keymaster or something?"

"No, and, ew." Sam grimaced. "You keep saying it in your sleep."

"Gatekeeper?" Dean stared at him. "You're not just saying this to mess with me, right? Have some fun with the amnesiac brother?"

"Dean," he said flatly

"Okay, all right. Uh…" Dean lay back, staring at the ceiling. "Gatekeeper." He gave it a few seconds, then shrugged. "I got nothing."

"Yeah, well, that makes two of us," Sam sighed, clicking the web browser closed. "I've checked 'gatekeeper,' amnesiac spells, imprisonment wards, and the history of the whole town. It looks like the house we cleaned the imp out of was the only thing remotely supernatural in the whole area."

"So, maybe there was something else in the house?" Dean offered.

Sam stared at him, jaw going loose.

Dean grinned back. "Don't have to go to college to be smart, professor." He pushed up on one elbow, taking in their respective positions for the first time. "What're you doing on the floor?"

Sam ignored him, still thinking about the house. Dean always teased him about being the smart one, but it wasn't the first time Sam envied his brother's clarity of thought. Dean often cut to the heart of the matter while Sam was still floundering in the details.

The nightstand knob was digging into his spine, and Sam grimaced, moving back again to lean against Dean's bed. He barely rolled his eyes as his brother's chin settled on his shoulder to read the screen.

"Do you mind?"

"Nope," Dean said pleasantly, then rolled away grumbling when Sam hitched his shoulder. "Maybe _you_ should take a nap—you're getting cranky, Sam."

"Your disappearing for two days and turning up looking chomped tends to do that to me, Dean—go figure." Sam leaned his head back against the mattress and said more softly, "Why don't you go back to sleep? You still sound rough, man."

"Yeah, and you sound fresh as a daisy. Give it a rest, Sam—I'll even let you sleep with me again."

"Okay, I'm just gonna…pretend you didn't say that. If we're going to go back to the house tomorrow, I need to figure this out today, Dean. We're not letting this thing, whatever it is, get a second crack at you."

The short, sharp pants registered a half-second before Dean's tight voice did. "Sam…"

Sam slid the laptop off and scrambled to turn around. Dean's face was as pale as he sounded, one hand clenched around a handful of sheet. "Dean, what's—?"

"The house, Sam." It was said around bared teeth. "Something _really_ doesn't want us going back there."

He sat up on the edge of the bed and eased Dean's taut fingers free of the bedding. "All right, easy. You don't have to do this, okay? I can—"

"We're not having that discussion again."

Sam opened his mouth, shut it, casting around the room for another option. "Okay, uh, look…there's no real reason we have to go back, is there? I mean, for all we know, this…thing in the house is only affecting you. We go away, it goes dormant again, case closed. We can walk away from this one, Dean." He still wanted a crack at whatever had done this to his brother, but Dean came before revenge. Before everything, actually.

His brother shook his head tightly. "No."

"Dean—"

"No." His jaw flexed with effort. "I told you, I'm not letting this thing win, Sammy. If it doesn't want me to go back this bad, there's a reason, right? I wanna know why, and what it did to me before."

Sam chewed on that, then slowly nodded. "Okay. But we go during the day. And not yet." Just as Sam had hoped, as if he'd said the magic words, Dean's muscles suddenly went lax, and he sagged back to the bed as he gulped in air. Sam surreptitiously kneaded the one hand he had possession of. "We're not going anywhere near that place until we have some idea what we're up against, all right?"

Some of the color had returned to Dean's face, and he extracted his hand from Sam's to rub his unshaven jaw. "Yeah, sounds like a plan."

Sam studied him. "You sure you're okay?"

Dean was silent for a moment, then turned on his side away from Sam. "I'm gonna catch a few more z's while you play research boy. Wake me when it's time for dinner, huh?"

Dean had always been the one who'd soothed his fears and made him feel safe, not the other way around. It wasn't the first time Sam had keenly felt the inequity. But no matter what his intentions, any platitudes or—God forbid—understanding clasp of the shoulder would only seriously annoy Dean at this point, which rather defeated the purpose. Sam knew his big brother.

And what Dean feared.

He leaned down, lifting the laptop, then scooted up to the head of the bed. Making himself comfortable against the wall in the small space Dean had left him, Sam opened the laptop again and started to work.

Dean half-rolled back to glare up at him. "What're you doing?"

"Working. Shut up and go to sleep."

"What, you can't work at the table now?" But Dean wriggled over to give him more room.

Overt comfort was one thing. Just his being there, even Dean wouldn't fight. Dean's one true fear was being left alone, and if nothing else, Sam could at least offer his presence.

Dean was soon asleep.

An hour later, Sam found his answer.

00000

"You could stay out here in the car," Sam offered sympathetically.

Dean's shallow breathing, just short of hyperventilation, filled the silence in the Impala. They had to be at the right place; Sam had watched with worried eyes as his brother's anxiety increased with every mile they got closer to town and the house, until Dean's muscles seemed stretched to snapping and his gripping hands once more left smears of blood behind. Sam had checked his pulse when he'd pried Dean's fingers loose, and wasn't surprised to feel it pounding like an animal trying to escape from a cage. It was an apt analogy. Dean was like a thing cornered, caught between fight and flight. Except with Dean, it was never flight, and his fight was deadly.

"Dean—"

"We're goin' in."

Sam only hesitated a moment. "Okay. But if you need to get out, just go, all right? I can do this on my own."

"Shut up and let's go kill this bitch." And still without looking at him, Dean jerked the car door open and climbed out. If his movements were more wooden than his usual lethal grace, Sam didn't comment.

He followed Dean out of the car and paused with him to stare up at the house.

It had taken a lot of digging online to get past the stories of mischief and murder the imp had been responsible for. But deeper down, in the history of the house that stretched two centuries back, Sam had found what he'd been looking for: three suicides and two murders, all committed by hysterical residents, all in the basement. And before that, before the house had been even built, a brushfire that had swept through the area trapping and killing a settler family in a wagon. Fearful spirits, or something older, something that caused fear by its nature? Sam wasn't sure and didn't really care. Cleansing the house would take care of either and should break its hold on Dean, and that was all that mattered to Sam at this point.

He glanced over at Dean, catching the faint tremors running through his brother's body, the way Dean's jaw was clenched as he fought for control over fear Sam could only imagine. He felt a quiet pride that nothing ever defeated Dean Winchester, at least not for long.

"Ready?" he asked, not unsympathetically.

Dean's jaw went even tighter, but he gave Sam a terse glance and nod.

They strode to the house side-by-side.

They'd never bothered relocking the door after their visit a few days before, and it swung open at Sam's touch. He glanced cautiously into the dim foyer, then turned back to Dean. "Coast is clear."

"Speak for yourself," Dean ground out.

Sam gave him a half-smile and led the way in.

The basement entrance was a trapdoor in the walk-in pantry. They'd found the imp upstairs and hadn't bothered searching the rest of the place, but Dean didn't tease his little brother about being research boy for nothing. Sam headed unerringly toward the kitchen in the back, glancing behind him occasionally to make sure Dean was following. When the sound of fractured humming reached his ears, Sam smiled again. This had to be at least as bad for Dean as going on a plane, but he was dealing. Yeah, it was partly because Dean wasn't about to cave in to some entity with a nasty fear mojo. But even more so, he wasn't going to let his little brother go anywhere without back-up.

They reached the kitchen door, and the humming was starting to skip notes and lose steam. Sam looked back at his brother again and frowned at Dean's white, drawn face. "You okay?" he asked, concerned anew.

"We're close," Dean panted.

"The door's in there." Sam pointed. The pantry stood open and the circle of iron in the floor glinted dully.

Dean unexpectedly hung his head, one hand going up to cradle it in a move that reminded Sam for the briefest second of the skinwalker. "Sam…"

He turned immediately, taking Dean's arm and pulling him back out into the hallway. "It's okay. You've gone far enough. I can take it from here."

"I'm not letting you—"

"Dean, I'm just going right through there. I'll be in shouting distance—I'll yell if I need help, all right? There's no point in making you go through this."

Dean stared at him hotly, even with the terror that blew out his pupils. "I can—"

"I know you can," Sam said earnestly. "If you needed to—if _I_ needed you—you could. But you don't. I'm okay, I can do this, and you can cover my back from here. It's not worth doing this to you."

Dean searched his eyes, then slumped. "This sucks."

Sam gripped his brother's shoulder, massaging it a moment. "Yeah, it does."

"Fine. I'll wait here. But you call if anything so much as moves down there."

"Okay."

"You do what you need to do and get out of there."

"All right."

"I mean it, Sam—no playing hero."

"I get it already! Geez, Dean, you sure you don't want to put me on a leash?"

Dean's eyes lit up.

Sam rolled his own. "Wait here," he said flatly, then turned back to the kitchen.

The wooden floor echoed hollowly even under his sneakers, and Sam resisted the urge to glance back at Dean to reassure himself his brother was still there. _Little brother much? _It wasn't like he was afraid, either; he'd been uneasy in the house from the start, but nothing like the stark terror in Dean's eyes.

The windowless pantry was a lot darker than the kitchen, and the gaping, jutting shelves made the small room claustrophobic. Sam tried to ignore it all as he reached for the iron ring and pulled up on the trapdoor. It took a lot of muscle, enough that he thought for a minute he'd have to call Dean over, after all, but finally with a creak of rusty hinges, the door lifted, then swung.

The dank darkness below was not encouraging.

Sam did look back then, to see Dean's washed-out face hovering in the kitchen doorway, anxiously watching his progress. Sam gave him a wan smile, then clicked his flashlight on and found the rungs of the ladder descending into the basement.

And the gouged wood along the edge of the inside of the trapdoor, smeared with a dark stain.

Sam pried something white loose from one scar in the wood, and stared at the broken fingernail. He didn't dare look back at Dean this time, just swallowed and started down.

It was actually more of a cellar than a basement. The earthy smell was from the dirt walls, the room carved right out of the ground. Shored shelves held the walls at bay although they'd crumbled in a few places over the years, and rusty oil lamp hangers on two walls dated the house. Sam's gaze and the flashlight swept the walls, looking for something out of place in what seemed an otherwise plain, empty room.

A waft of cold air washed over Sam. He frowned. The flashlight in his hand flickered and dimmed.

Sam glanced around, more warily this time. It was the right place, and it was time, because he wasn't alone down there. Taking a breath, he began to chant. "_In nomine Dei—"_

The trapdoor slammed shut behind him, extinguishing even that meager source of light. As Sam whirled back to look at it, he could hear a muffled shout from above, then faint pounding. Dean.

The next moment, an unseen hand picked him up and slammed him against the wall next to the shelves.

All the air exploded out of Sam and his back felt broken. The shockwave of pain traveled through his head and torso, down his limbs. He'd have arched against it except he was pinned to the wall like a bug.

The flashlight, dropped during flight, spun once and settled to illuminate the corner near Sam. Even as he gasped air back into his flattened lungs and tried to clear his vision, he registered the small length of pipe protruding from the wall and its matte red finish, and had a sudden idea of what had skewered Dean.

And then the cold came back, and he lost all rational thought.

The fear was like an ocean wave, completely overpowering, sweeping him away. Sam gasped with it, feeling the air suck out of the room and his heart slam against his ribs. _Oh, God. _He was going to die. He was going crazy. He couldn't stand this. He might have screamed if he'd had voice.

_You are here._

Sam's eyes darted around the room, looking for the speaker, searching for an escape because, oh, God, he could feel himself going insane. He couldn't seem to draw in a deep enough breath, and his muscles bunched and twitched in a thwarted attempt to flee the unseen danger. He couldn't…he couldn't stand this.

_I've been waiting._

Sam swallowed convulsively, mouth ash-dry. "Wh-who are you?"

I felt you before—your presence woke me. Such power… 

He wouldn't survive this. And it would be better, too, than this panic that crawled along his skin like ants, a thousand tiny feather-points of pain.

_I would have taken you then if not for the gatekeeper._

The word sharpened Sam's thoughts for a brief second, and he grasped after the moment of sanity. "Gatekeeper?"

_He would not have let me get to you, so I had to lure him away. So easy—fear for you was enough. _

Sam closed his eyes. Dean.

_He escaped me, but no matter. I called, and you are here and will remain here. Mine._

Sam swallowed a sob, the fear a living thing writhing through him, consuming. He couldn't do this. He couldn't do this and stay sane. His rational mind was already curled up somewhere inside him; there was nothing to fight against, no images, no triggers, no skeletons in his closet. Just formless, suffocating terror. His skin was too tight, body shuddering with chills, his heart ready to explode.

_Mine. _And he could hear the smile this time, the satisfaction that made his skin want to crawl off his bones. _Forever._

The force that flattened him against the wall let him go just as suddenly. Sam collapsed to the floor and curled into a ball, fighting for his mind. "This isn't real. There's nothing to be—" The panic crept into his throat and turned the words into a croak of despair.

He barely heard the distant crash. A few moments later, hands grabbed his biceps. Real hands.

"Sam! Block it out—focus!"

_No._

Sam gasped, trying to obey but too terrified to make sense of the order.

He was hauled upright, wrapped tight in warmth. He hadn't realized how cold he was until that second, but even better, it gave him something to hold on to in the midst of the maelstrom. Sam clutched back and tried to orient himself. Panic filled his mind, but his fingers dug into warm cloth and flesh, his nose pressed against fragrant leather, his eyes opening to an up-close view of checked flannel. Dean was there; Dean would help. He'd keep Sam from losing his hold on the world around him, because he could always hold on to Dean.

Sam buried himself a little more against his brother. "This isn't real," he whispered. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"Sam, you have to do the ritual. You're the one who knows it—you have to do it and all this will be over, okay? Just concentrate on that."

No! He felt the pull of the unseen and clenched Dean even tighter, feeling his brother hold on. 

Get over it. Sure, simple. Sam sucked in a wet breath and tried to focus. Terror. Leather and aftershave and amulet. _Fear._ He whimpered.

"You can do this, Sammy, you can end this. Focus on the words."

He focused on Dean instead, filling his senses with his brother. The apprehension still crowded his head, clawing at his coherence, but Sam grounded himself in Dean's presence and reached past it, looking for the lines he knew by heart.

"In nomine Dei…" 

It began as a whisper, but with every line he felt the cold dread retreat a little more. The last few words came out sharp and defiant, yelled over Dean's shoulder.

"…_Deus est!"_

_NO!_

It was a screech of defeat, funneled away in the wind that whipped through the room. The roar deafened Sam, until he was pressed against Dean almost as much for physical protection as psychological. He couldn't have said if he was looking for shelter or offering it.

The wail died down, and then there was only the sound of them both panting for breath. Dean's knees thunked against the packed ground as he slumped, Sam with him.

He kept hanging on until his heart no longer felt like it would burst out of his chest, and his breathing had slowed enough that the spots of black faded from his vision. The fear was gone, replaced by a vague wondering sense of _what the heck was that and why was I so scared of it?_, and Sam nearly laughed.

"What's so funny?" Dean asked from somewhere near his left ear, sounding like he was also on his way back to normal but not quite there yet.

Sam shook his head. "Nothing," he said earnestly. Two demon hunters huddled together on a basement floor in mortal terror of nothing in particular—nothing funny at all about that. He considered asking Dean if he'd had to fight the same fear to come down there or if it had waned when the attack had started on Sam, but it didn't really matter. Dean had come and, no matter what the cost, always would.

"You okay?" Dean pressed.

"Yeah." Sam suited word to deed, pushing gently away, taking a breath as he did. One hand was still twined in Dean's jacket, and his brother gripped the back of Sam's collar, but Sam looked for and found his balance. His back ached, and he was tired and a little shaky, but not badly off, considering.

"So…you wanna tell me what all that was about?" Dean was too pale to be sitting up by any rights, but his eyes were almost calm except for the familiar and comfortable concern for Sam. His inhalations were slowing with his brother's, and Sam thought they might actually even manage standing in a minute or so.

Sam suddenly grinned at him. "Dude, you were the gatekeeper."

Dean stared at him incredulously a minute, then pushed himself to his feet without a word and headed, wobbly, for the ladder.

"Seriously, Dean. It wanted me, but it had to get past you first. That's why it brought you here, to get you out of the way." _Fear for you—_Sam remembered his own inchoate dream and shuddered. He had an idea how Dean had been lured back, even if his brother couldn't remember.

"Yeah, yeah. It's always about you," Dean shot back tiredly over one shoulder as he grabbed the axe lying by the ladder and began to climb back up. Above him, the trapdoor was in splintered tatters. Sam hadn't even heard him breaking through.

Sam stood, swaying. Flicked the flashlight over to the blood-crusted pipe, then around the room until he saw the high-up window, the earth around it clawed out. He would probably find blood there as he had on the trapdoor if he'd bothered to look. The door that was now kindling.

"Yeah," Sam said softly. "It's always about me."

He turned his back on the now-empty room, and followed his brother up into the light.

00000

"So if it can manipulate fear and dreams like that, how come it didn't pull you in after it bagged me?"

After thirty-six hours of sleeping, eating, soaking in the tub, and generally recuperating back at the motel outside town, they were on the road again. Sam shook his head, one hand braced idly on the dash. For once, it felt good not to be driving, to see Dean, still a little bruised and weary but himself again, back in the driver's seat. It felt right. "It underestimated us."

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning, I was too worried about you to sleep, so it couldn't latch on to me. The one time it tried, you were already back so I could see you were okay, and it didn't work. And you were too worried about me—and stubborn—to just give up, so you broke out of the basement. Then you came down after me in the basement and together… It couldn't fight that, Dean. That's why it wanted to get rid of the gatekeeper first."

Dean's mouth turned down. "I'm not gonna live that one down, am I? Gatekeeper? What, so I'm just the babysitter now for the main attraction?"

They hadn't really talked about it, about what even that thing in the basement had recognized Dean to be, and probably never would. For better or for worse, Dean would always do his best to put himself in between Sam and danger, and they both knew it. Sam smiled at his brother. "I think what you mean is 'sidekick,'" he offered.

"You wish," Dean scoffed. "Sidekicks don't have the cool car and the good looks."

"And that's relevant here…how, again?"

Dean glared at him. "You're really asking for it, bro."

Sam couldn't rein in his amusement any longer, breaking into a laugh.

Dean heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Just as long as the Keymaster looks like Sigourney Weaver, that's all I'm saying." He flexed his hands on the steering wheel, cocked his head. "So how does the amnesia fit in?"

He'd been thinking about that, and wasn't crazy about the answer he'd come up with. "Traumatic amnesia?" Sam said quietly. "The mind protects itself by forgetting." Because after the small taste he'd gotten, Sam hadn't even been able to think about what Dean had gone through the two days he'd been gone.

His brother didn't seem ruffled. "Am I ever gonna get the time back?" he asked matter-of-factly.

Sam looked at him. "Do you want to?"

Dean gave a half-shrug. "What happens to us makes us what we are, Sam."

Sam considered that for long seconds, then shook his head. "It's up to you, man, but I wouldn't look for it. Unless we're talking about changing your taste in music, I think you're good."

He couldn't see Dean's eyes through the dark glasses that turned to appraise him, but he could guess at their expression. Especially when that lazy smile appeared for a moment. "One day you're going to learn to appreciate my music." He reached over and turned the radio up.

Sam grinned back and shook his head. "In your dreams, Dean."

**The End**


End file.
